Loco Tita

Meet Loco Tita.  Born Tita Mannella Marie

Now, this bird has a story.  Loco Tita used to be your average chicken.  She got up every morning, laid an egg, then headed out of the coop to scratch in the dirt with the rest of the girls.  In fact, she was so average that she was rarely noticed at all.  And that is how, one evening when the other girls were ushered into the coop for the night, Tita was left behind.

By the time she had realized she had been left out for the night, the full moon had already climbed up over the Santiago Mountains and was illuminating the Land Beyond the barnyard.  Now, a chicken out after dark in coyote country might sound like a bad thing, but Tita wasn't particularly worried.  In fact, a strange calmness or peacefulness had fallin' over her and she delighted in following the intoxicating scents into the Land Beyond.

I wish I could tell you what happened to Tita that night, but I cannot, for she hasn't shared her story with others.  All that is known, is that the moon was particularly big and bright that night.  The local coyotes had set up such a ruckus and howl that the chickens secure in the coop feared for their little chicken lives.

The next morning when the chicken door was once again opened, Tito the rooster, found Tita in the barnyard, passed out on her back - little chicken legs straight up in the air, a halo of wild flowers woven upon her head, and the unmistakable scent of coyote clinging suggestively to her chicken-ness.

When she awoke, her eyes were forever crooked - she seemed to see that which the other chickens could not see.  Where Tita was barely noticed before, she was now sought out for her strange ability to "read" chicken feet.  Many a hen has come to Tita to have her chicken fortunes told.

Sometimes, when the moon is particularly full and bright, and the coyotes howl in the distance, Tita looks out to the Land Beyond with longing and desire...